


this time

by madasaboxofcats



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, post 3.13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:07:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madasaboxofcats/pseuds/madasaboxofcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 3x13 -- "Witch Hunt." </p><p>"This time, when her heart breaks, it is at a diner and not a stable, in an apartment and not a castle. A cup falls to the floor, shards of glass collecting at her feet like so much hay and she is lost. He isn’t dead, not this time, but she might as well be because he looks right through her and she can’t breathe."</p>
            </blockquote>





	this time

This time, when her heart breaks, it is at a diner and not a stable, in an apartment and not a castle. A cup falls to the floor, shards of glass collecting at her feet like so much hay and she is lost. He isn’t dead, not this time, but she might as well be because he looks right through her and she can’t breathe.

He isn’t here, this isn’t happening. 

This can’t be happening.

This time, when her heart breaks, there is no one to blame but herself. No little girls with wagging tongues, good intentions eclipsed by devastating consequences. No mothers who love more than they should, who hold too tightly, who she could never blame, not really, because she loved her too much, too. Her mother wasn’t a monster because monsters aren’t lovable (and she should know; she’s been a monster for decades) and she loved her until her last breath. 

She wishes she could blame Snow or the pirate or someone, anyone, for taking her child from her, because it would hurt less, because she can ignore sadness when she’s angry, but she can’t because she knows where this came from, what led to this. 

This time, when her heart breaks, it breaks because she broke it, because her heart broke last time, because everything she set into motion when she sent purple smoke across the land, has lead to this, to her love and her loss and her torment. To a little boy who, once upon a time, loved her (and then hated her and then loved her again) and who now looks at her like she is nothing.

She told Peter Pan once that she had no regrets because all of her misdeeds (her father, her horse, the people and towns and so, so many lives lost like Daniel’s had been, so many families destroyed like her own) had led her to Henry, but now Henry is gone and the weight of her evilness falls on her, and she can’t stand under it, can’t breathe underneath its heaviness. Henry had stood in place of regrets and now that he stands far from her, wary and unknowing, with a handshake instead of a hug, the regrets are all she has.

She deserves this.

But this time when her heart breaks, there is someone who tries to help her rebuild it. _She_ is there, she who took everything, who had everything, who her son called “Mom” and she tries, tries, tries to resent it, to resent _her_ for her sad looks and comforting words, but she just can’t. She can’t because someone is there and she hasn’t had someone there for her in a very long time (since Henry – before the book, before the broken curse, before _everything_ ).

So she takes the tender smiles and the warm touches and the calm assurances because they feel like a balm to whatever is left of her soul, even though she doesn’t believe them, even though her hope has been extinguished, crushed by someone else’s hand (so many _someones_ over the years). She accepts them because she hurts and because they are offered and because maybe this, this comfort, this companionship, would have been enough the first time her heart broke. Not to heal, not to put herself back together, because that would have been impossible (because of Daniel because she loved him because he was everything but not as _everything_ as Henry is now), but enough to keep her from tearing the world apart.

(But if she hadn’t torn the world apart, she wouldn’t have had Henry.)

(But if she hadn’t had Henry, she wouldn’t have lost Henry.) 

(If she hadn’t lost Henry, her heart wouldn’t be breaking.) 

(But if she hadn’t found Henry, she wouldn’t have had a heart to break.) 

She tells her that they will fix things, that she will have her son and her son will have his mothers and that some day, they’ll go to PTA meeting and soccer games like normal parents instead of chasing down wicked witches and flying monkeys. 

It is a nice story. 

It isn’t true, but it is a nice story so she listens while it’s told and she tries to smile and believe in the possibilities.

This time, when her heart breaks, she isn’t alone.

 


End file.
